The tragedy here is well and beyond a thing for the children who died. The families are all but wrecked forever in unimaginable anguish. The survivors and their families will live with this forever and the event will shape and clutch and claw at them in one way or another for the rest of their lives, affecting and likely diminishing them in innumerable ways. The school will live in the shadow of this incident. The district will. The state will. The nation will. We'll all become a little bit more paranoid of incidents like these and our schools will become a little bit more cold and withdrawn and afraid and parents will be too and this weird ugly specter will become just a little bit more of our national character. The world will become a more chilled and afraid and unwelcome place and this fear will seep in and be evermore the environment of socialization for children. None of what will come of this (and sure as Harris and Klebold are still people who forever changed our schools, so too will this shooter be) is worth any of the rights that the reactionaries are already circling the wagons to defend, ceaselessly. It is their goal, and their job, to make sure that we don't Politicize the Event. It is their goal, and their job, to keep the talk in circles and at all costs recycle old outrages and get the entire impetus for change that this event should represent stuck and drowned in a world of talking heads and intransigence. In every last one of these shootings, we can always bitterly talk about how we're just not going to change anything and have to go through this again, and again, and again. Always, the Next Shooting.

And today, the Next Shooting is a man murdering family members, then walking into a K-4 and gunning down children. With a big ol' final score. A nice big one. And the NRA-styled crowd does not and will not and can not look at the final tally and the gross hideousness of such an event and say "maybe it's time to reform things." They only say "wow, this will make it a real chore to distract people away from reform and make sure nothing changes, because guns/second amendment." The entirety of this incident is mangled into perversion in their heads. More than anything I think the world would be served by touching up the code of the universe, swapping some assets here and there, and having them nobly be used as the replacements for the children who were killed. Let them take the place of purely innocent kids. Let them lie in a pool of blood, drowning from a sucking chest wound, gargling their last, watching an insane person coldly murder others around them. Let them fade to black with the unpropitious and morbidly horrifying realization that their body will barely be cold by the time people like them are already trying to make sure that no matter what, we never let things like this incident successfully turn into things that are for preventing this incident.

In short, fuck this, fuck everyone responsible for the most prosperous nation having gaping, callously neglectful holes in the place of a mental safety network, fuck all the people whose first reaction to this is to clutch their guns and spew grassy dogshit about how this could only have been prevented if those good citizens, moviegoers, and kindergarten teachers were allowed to carry their own arsenals, fuck every pundit and talking head trying to turn it into a oh we'll just kill each other with knives or rocks, fuck everyone clutching their pearls and telling everyone not to politicize the issue when it's already direly political like an arrow through the heart of gun zeitgeist in this nation, fuck it all, goodnight.

I was just thinking: Was the shooting in Connecticut the 'copy cat'? where did it start. I remember the 7 year old girl who got shot by a 9 year old, back in 1989. I was 9 and this happened about 15-20 miles from where I lived. Some of the teachers in school knew her or her relatives. Some of them knew the shooter or his relatives. I think he was 11 when he went to trial, as an adult. I remember the whole thing being pretty surreal. I think I cried at one point because I felt sad for her relatives. I didn't realize until years later that it made national news.

I can only imagine what's going on now, for those in the immediate vicinity, for those with young children in school. I've been saying it semi jokingly, but I'm SOOOO glad I home school my kids. I honestly don't know how I would feel if I knew my kids were going to be sent to school in the wake of this sort of thing._________________...if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there.http://about.me/omardrake

and the worst part is, not even a psychopath mowing down children will be enough to spark any real change

there probably is a Next Shooting that is bad enough to do that, but thinking about it makes me feel all creepy and depressed, and yet i know it'll happen someday

hahaha, nothing will change

there is no gun debate in america
nobody cares about mental health care
the world will burn before the media admit they're a bunch of shits/why they're a bunch of shits/and are willing to change because journalists are horrible people (and i'm studying to become one i should know)

28 people died and nothing will change_________________attitude of a street punk, only cutting selected words out of context to get onself excuse to let one's dirty mouth loose

Me and Tessa have talked about this a lot. In Australia after the Port Arthur Massacre in the 90's there was a mass gun amnesty where people were paid for their firearms and they were all melted down and since then we haven't had a national shooting spree tragedy, other than gang violence that is absurdly light compared to the states.

But at the same time, there was no revolution that started Australia, the land was stolen from an indigenous people, but we did not rebel against the Crown like you did. So when the gun amnesty and the national restrictions came through, as much as people whinged there was no great opposition. We still have pro gun parties etc., but a majority of people just use guns for hunting. The only people in Australia with guns use them legitimately for hunting or are criminals, there is no culture of guns for self defence here. I mean, I'm sure some people have guns for self-defence, but they are few and far between.

In all of it though, all I can think is that why are there no restrictions on people with clear mental illness having access to guns? Loughner was clearly severely mentally disturbed, yet had not been diagnosed so could still buy guns. The system is so broken that people with mental illness are not provided proper support, and can buy fucking guns.

Is it so difficult to introduce some sort of national scheme where in order to purchase a gun you need to have some sort of documentation that you have proved yourself mentally fit to own a gun? The fact that the last mall shooter stole a gun does nothing to diminish this.

Another thing I can't stop thinking is that it is the genetic prerogative of mammals and animals in general to protect their children. There are more children dying every day from malnutrition in suffering countries, there are children this age locked up inside refugee detention centres while they wait for access to Australia, there are children disappearing every day off our streets taken by cruel adults, and these are all tragedies but a man walked in to a school with a gun and murdered twenty children.

Children that are meant to be protected until they can protect themselves. Surely not even the most stalwart pro-gun activist can argue with that. There is no way that having easy access to guns could have made that situation any better. Could a teacher have been trained with firearms and have been able to react in time to put one through this guys head and kill him before he got into his spree? Is that what the logic is trying to dictate? Guns should be accessible because if someone else had a gun they could have put him down? If one child had died and then the gunman had been murdered that would be one child too many.

If this man went out and bought a gun, or he stole a gun, or he built a gun, then he had too much access to guns. As David Thorne said, it was your constitutional right to bear arms two hundred years ago, should that law be upholded forever regardless of the cost?

There is an opportunity now, as there has been with every mass shooting, to say no more. It's just such a fucking mess. We should be looking after our most vulnerable citizens.

while I have no children I have spent six years teaching 5 - 10 year olds and they have been some of the most amazing peers and collaborators and creative people I have ever worked with regardless of age and this is all just devastating.

Is it so difficult to introduce some sort of national scheme where in order to purchase a gun you need to have some sort of documentation that you have proved yourself mentally fit to own a gun? The fact that the last mall shooter stole a gun does nothing to diminish this.

Very much this. Also, does Australia have the right to bear arms in it's constitution? Do any of the commonwealth countries? Canada and the UK don't, which I'm pretty sure is why people aren't as bitterly opposed to gun control.

Also, 69 people were shot and killed, 110 injured, and another 6 or so killed in the bomb blast in Oslo. Most of them teenagers at a political youth camp. And nothing changed then, either._________________Hangman, hangman, hold it a little while, I think I see my brother coming, riding many a mile.

Sale of metal detectors for schools and hiring of personnel to operate them will increase.

All in all, after thinking it through, and realizing all the bullshit that will get slung around, you know all the "reasons" why no real change in either gun control or mental healthcare will be enacted, I just see these events, for me, as another thing to add to my list of "reasons why I want to move to Canada."

CEDAR LAKE, Ind. (AP) — A northern Indiana man who allegedly threatened to "kill as many people as he could" at an elementary school near his home was arrested by officers who later found 47 guns and ammunition hidden throughout his home.

Von. I. Meyer, 60, of Cedar Lake, was arrested Saturday after prosecutors filed formal charges of felony intimidation, domestic battery and resisting law enforcement against him. He was being held Sunday without bond at the Lake County Jail, pending an initial hearing on the charges, police said in a statement.

Cedar Lake Police officers were called to Meyer's home early Friday after he allegedly threatened to set his wife on fire once she fell asleep, the statement said.

Meyer also threatened to enter nearby Jane Ball Elementary School "and kill as many people as he could before police could stop him," the statement said. Meyer's home is less than 1,000 feet from the school and linked to it by trails and paths through a wooded area, police said.

Police said in the statement that they notified school officials and boosted security at all area schools Friday — the same day 26 people, including 20 students, were shot and killed at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.

On Saturday, officers served warrants at Meyer's home and arrested him.

The statement said police had learned that Meyer kept many weapons in his older, two-story home and "is a known member of the Invaders Motorcycle Gang."

Officers searched the home, finding 47 guns and ammunition worth more than $100,000 hidden throughout the home. Many of the weapons were collector's guns.

Cedar Lake is about 45 miles southeast of Chicago.
A dispatcher with Cedar Lake Police said that the police chief was not available for interviews until Monday.

Lake County police spokeswoman Patti Van Til said Sunday that a SWAT team from the department assisted in serving Saturday's warrants.

_________________...if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there.http://about.me/omardrake